Maha loan waiver: Messy handling makes Darade quit

Narendra Darade, Chairman of Nashik District Central Cooperative Bank has resigned from his post saying government’s messy handling of the loan waver scheme has made it tough to work and deliver.

It bears recall that more than six months have passed since Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced the farm loan waiver scheme. While the state government officials are yet to identify the beneficiaries, expectations from the cooperative banks have become so troubling that cooperator like Darade finds it difficult to put up with.

Talking to this correspondent, Darade said “I have tendered my resignation letter two days back in the wake of problems faced due to loan waiver scheme and demonetization. I took charge as chairman of the bank two years back and still one-and-a-half years left”.

Darade who is associated with Shiv Sena said the bank has sent the list of 1.90 lakh farmers to the State Level Bankers Committee and the state government has found only 1.30 lakh farmers to be eligible. We have received 9,900 names of farmers as beneficiaries of the scheme for which amount of 25 crore received towards the loan waiver scheme but due to some errors we have not transferred the amount due to mishandling of the scheme”, he said on the phone.

With the announcement of the scheme, Darde said repayment of loans from farmers had stopped immediately which creates financial problems for the bank.

Nashik DCCB Chairman said after demonetization accounts holders deposited Rs 341 crore in the bank in return for which the bank had given new notes. Huge amounts in old currency notes are stuck with us.

It bears recall that earlier Narendra Darde had slammed the Fadnavis government decision to waive off farmers loans and promised DCC banks to reimburse money sooner than later. It is true that we would also like to waive off farmers’ loan but we don’t have the money, informed Darde.

“At the time of demonetization the government adopted tough stand and disallowed co-op bans from participating in the exchanging of new currency notes leading to huge losses to banks and now it wants those very banks to come to its rescue”, he had opined in the past.

There are 31 District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) in Maharashtra with more than 3 thousand branches with a deposit of about Rs 74,000 crore.

The Devendra Fadnavis announced the loan waiver on 24 June and was expected to benefit about 89 lakh farmers. The government began the process of crediting the amount into the bank accounts of farmers five weeks ago. The state government has received 77.29 lakh applications for the loan waiver. It believes that out of these, 67 lakh farmers will qualify for the waiver.